Chapter 18
The Reactor is Taken Away, and the Mind Transforms!
"Jarvis! Lock down all company permissions and initiate the preheating process for Empty Me 1!"
Tony gave the Bluetooth command, already preparing to take action.
There was complete silence in the headphones.
There was no longer that gentle voice with its usual British humor, only the unsettling hiss of static.
"Jarvis?"
Tony's heart sank.
The car suddenly swerved and came to a stop in front of the mansion on the edge of the cliff.
The villa, which was once brightly lit, was now pitch black. The smart door lock system was unresponsive, and the iris scanner was completely blank.
"Damn it, even you're on strike?"
Tony opened the car door and skillfully entered a mechanical password.
The living room was eerily quiet, with a faint smell of cigars in the air.
Tony stood in the darkness, his muscles tense, his right hand instinctively reaching for his lower back.
There were no weapons there.
Now, apart from this suit worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, he's as fragile as a piece of paper.
"I feel like I've seen this scene somewhere before; in horror movies, it usually means the main character is about to die..."
Tony muttered under his breath, trying to calm his wildly beating heart.
But before he could finish speaking...
hum! ! !
A high-frequency noise suddenly exploded in his ear without warning.
The sound wasn't like something you could hear; it was more like something that drilled directly into your brain and stirred it up.
Tony felt his eardrums being pierced, and his entire nervous system went numb instantly.
His knees buckled, and he fell straight backward, crashing heavily onto the sofa.
His veins were throbbing, the veins on his neck were bulging like earthworms, and black, net-like patterns covered his cheeks.
He opened his mouth wide to shout, but no sound came out; only his eyes could barely move.
From the shadows, a pair of gleaming leather shoes emerged.
Obadiah held a small device that resembled a remote control in his hand, a kind smile on his face.
"Breathe, Tony, breathe."
Obadiah walked to the sofa, looking down at the immobilized Tony. His eyes held no remorse, only greed and a morbid sense of satisfaction.
"This thing is really useful, that sonic paralysis device you made."
Obadiah waved the device in his hand, as if showing off a toy.
"It was originally intended to deal with terrorists, but I never expected that our first real-world application would be against you."
Tony stared intently at him. If looks could kill, Obadiah would have been torn to pieces by now.
But now he can't even move a finger.
"Don't look at me like that, Tony."
"You really don't understand. We sell weapons. Things like the heart will only slow down the speed at which we count money."
Obadiah bent down and pulled out a sophisticated three-claw extractor from his pocket, his movements so practiced they were chilling.
"Those scientists are a bunch of idiots. I gave them the best resources, and they told me that this technology is impossible to replicate."
"But you succeeded, Tony."
Obadiah secured the extractor to the edge of the reactor, the mechanical claw digging deep into Tony's chest skin.
Click.
The sound of metal biting into flesh was exceptionally clear in the quiet living room.
A sharp pain struck.
Although the body is unable to move, the pain receptors are amplified due to the numbness.
Tony felt like someone was breaking his ribs one by one.
"This is truly a masterpiece."
Obadiah twisted sharply, then pulled it outward with force.
*Pfft*
The wires connecting to the heart's blood vessels were forcibly severed.
In that instant, Tony felt as if his soul had been ripped out.
The pale blue light that had sustained his life was transferred from his chest to Obadiah's hand.
As the reactor was removed from the body, the tiny shrapnel that had been suppressed by the magnetic field began to rush towards the heart along with the bloodstream.
"Well……"
Tony hissed, hissing sound coming from his throat, and his pupils began to dilate.
"This power is the scepter of world domination; it's a waste to put it in your fragile body."
Obadiah stared at the energy source in his hand, completely absorbed, without even glancing at Tony.
He packed the reactor into his briefcase, straightened his suit collar, and turned to walk towards the door.
Goodbye, Tony.
"This is actually a form of mercy; at least you don't have to watch me build a new empire on your corpse."
The gate is closed.
The footsteps faded into the distance.
The living room fell into a deathly silence once again.
cold.
Bone-chilling cold.
Tony lay on the floor, his body convulsing violently due to lack of oxygen.
My vision blurred, and the chandelier on the ceiling became a double image.
Is this the end?
Died in his own living room, like a stray dog no one wanted?
"Huff... huff..."
Every breath felt like swallowing a shard of glass.
No...
I can't just die like this...
Pepper... Rod... and that damn gashapon merchant...
With his last ounce of willpower, Tony scratched at the floor with his fingers.
His fingernail broke off, leaving a shocking red trail of blood on the pristine white carpet.
He wanted to activate Jarvis, but his body had completely given up.
His heartbeat became weak and erratic, and the emptiness that threatened to stop at any moment consumed his consciousness.
"When technology reaches its end..."
In a daze, that annoying voice rang in my mind again.
"Look back at your body."
"Only the mind..."
Tony was on the verge of death, and his hand instinctively reached for something to save him, but he only touched the skin on his waist.
There, there was a belt that was now connected to his flesh and blood.
Yamadam.
Until this moment, Tony had always regarded it as a powerful weapon, and had even forgotten to use it just now.
He never truly trusted it, just as he didn't trust anyone but himself.
But now, when the technological pinnacle of the reactor is taken away, when even the most brilliant minds cannot prevent death from coming.
All he had left was it.
"Move..."
All he had left was anger.
An overwhelming rage that wants to tear everything apart and protect everything!
"As long as I can stand up... I'm willing to sell my soul to the devil!"
thump.
As the last heartbeat fell, Tony's pupils dilated, and his hand fell limply to his side.
In that very instant when death was about to strike.
The Amadam Stone, which had been lying dormant beneath Tony's abdominal skin, suddenly sensed the host's strong will to break through the top of his head.
It's not electricity, and it's not nuclear energy.
It is will.
hum!
A strange yet holy white light suddenly shone from Tony's lower abdomen, illuminating the dimly lit living room.
The heart, which had already stopped beating, was forcibly pierced by a domineering bio-electric current!
Boom! ! !
That heartbeat was as heavy as thunder.
Tony suddenly opened his eyes, his once caramel-colored pupils now radiating a white light.
"Henshin!"